It will be there when I retire. Social Security hasn’t missed a payment since the day it started. It does have a long-term challenge with retirees drawing more benefits than payroll taxes expected to come in. But even if Congress does nothing—which political experts say is unlikely because of the program’s popularity—Social Security can keep paying most benefits until the end of this century. “It’s not something people should lose sleep over,” says Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, says younger people should feel secure. “This program is not only important for their parents, their grandparents, but for them.”

Congress has never raided the trust fund. In years where Social Security payroll taxes total more than is paid out in benefits, the surplus is added to the Social Security Trust Fund for later use. Of course, the $2.7 trillion surplus accumulated over decades is not sitting around in cash; it’s invested in interest-paying bonds, Richtman notes. The Social Security investments are Treasury bonds backed by the U.S. government.

Undocumented immigrants are not draining Social Security by collecting retirement benefits. While some undocumented workers use fake Social Security numbers and pay into the system, they can’t collect benefits unless they become legal residents or U.S. citizens. Richtman notes that undocumented workers who pay into Social Security provide it with revenue, but never receive benefits.

The annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) does not keep up with the inflation older Americans face. Each year, benefit checks are adjusted to reflect inflation. But the formula is based on a market basket of goods used by average urban workers, not retirees. So when medical costs rise faster than other products, for instance, those who are heavy users of health care end up shortchanged, according to advocates for older Americans. Some lawmakers have proposed using a price index for older consumers that better reflects their buying patterns, to preserve their purchasing power.

Social Security is not like an individual retirement savings account. The government does not stow your payroll tax contributions in a personal account for you, to be paid out with interest when you retire. Your benefit is based on how much money you earned over your working life, not on how much you paid into the system. As noted above, those contributions fund benefits for current retirees. When you retire, those still working will cover your benefits, and so on. Over their lifetimes, most people get more from Social Security and Medicare than they pay in, according to analyses by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

You don’t lose benefits permanently if you keep working. Social Security does have a rule, called the “earnings limit” that can temporarily reduce the benefits of people still working. But the rule covers only people who claim benefits before full retirement age (FRA) and continue working. In this circumstance, Social Security withholds a portion of benefits if earnings from work exceed a set cap, which changes every year and differs depending on how close you are to full retirement age. In 2025, if you are working and will not reach FRA until a later year, your Social Security payments will be reduced by $1 for every $2 in earnings above $23,400. In the month you hit FRA, the earnings test goes away—there’s no benefit reduction whatever your income.

Social Security is not just for older Americans. Although three-quarters of the recipients are retirees, 1 in 4 are people with disabilities, or spouses and children of workers who have died or become disabled. “It’s there for you right now if something unfortunate happens,” Richtman says.